Exalted General - /exg/

I'm speaking from personal experience. When the GM has not established and discussed the tone of the campaign with the players, they make characters according to their expectations and ideas of the setting and system. This is a problem when one player shows up with a grizzled warrior with aims to dethrone some local tyrant, and another shows up with an incredibly animoo loli with the goal of having a harem with one exalt of each type. yeah?

You are confusing ruining systems and ruining campaigns with some of those.

>Lunars ruin games.

No.

Lunars are certainly bait for a) furfags who get off on being the little monstergirl, b) commissar fuklaws who get off on purging furfags and heresy.

But if you have either of these people doing their shit in your game, *those people* are what's ruining it, and they'd be ruining it with or without Lunars. Blame the That Guy, not the splatbook That Guy is using.

>I thought the 3e devs were against that sort of thing...
The 3e devs thought it would be a good use of their time recently to issue a statement on a bunch of stuff in 3e where among other things they confirm that The Deathlord Of Many Penes is still in 3e and still has many penes. Then they disclaim it with a rhetorical "can we focus on what's important, guys?" as though it were something out of a comment thread rather than their own announcement.

I don't know what the 3e devs are for or against, but they sure act retarded sometimes.

I like lunars and I play them responsibly.

lel. Where do they make these announcements anyway? Watching stupidity happen in person is always good for a larf.

Nice.

>When the GM has not established and discussed the tone of the campaign with the players...

pretty much this. This isn't a problem that happens only in exalted. It happens in all rpgs.

I made a nomad caravan guard with a simple dream of getting enough money to buy a camel herd for his dowry. He became a Judge Dredd paladin.

Second guy made a barbarian from distant lands. He had no problems making deals with evil spirits and stygian snake people (known goal is to rule all the humans as slaves). No compromises with giants (also have a known goal to rule all the humans as slaves) but snake people are okay.

Third dude made a cleric because hell yeah spellcaster. Making heresy on every step of the way. Teaching other higher ranking priests and angels what the real dogma is. Also calling them evil spirits if they don't agree with his way of thinking when they warm him he is going toward heresy.

Fourth guy made a wizard from the southern mage cities. Became a member of the Mage council in the rival mage city (which are in league with djinns. Which are also into ruling all humans as slaves).

All this happened because gm didn't establish what is okay and what isn't.
That being said it was fun campaign.

>rape ghosts
Stop this meme.

I like the idea of lunars but their two implementations have been poor so far

The only thing that seems weird to me about this is where theyll fit the more odd affects infernals have. The whole faustian bargin tree could probably fit in presence, but what about the telekenisis tree?

Faustian bargains are bureaucracy. I can see Mind Hand being Lore.

>Similar to the previous edition, shintais are blasphemous
>manifestations of Yozi might. Each Charm in the Infernal set
>will contain an occult detail attached to the end of the Charm
>that represents spiritual or physical growth in the Infernal’s
>being. Once she has collected a number of specific, matching
>elements (by learning Infernal Charms) she will be capable of
>manifesting a shintai. Shintais are terrible forms of dark power
>that transform the Infernal into a monster and lend her great
>power. As the Infernal collects more and more pieces of shintais
>from mastery of her Charm set, the player can use them to build
>more complex and powerful custom shintais using a point-build
>system.

>Each shintai will feature a number of signature powers it can
>unleash. When an Infernal invokes a shintai, she changes into
>its form, gaining a new health track (and potentially, a new
>mote pool). Losses from her health track (and mote pool) do
>not carry over when her shintai ends. Shintais offer the Infernal
>a number of powerful, variable options for dealing with threats
>that bring exceptional expansion to the normal functions of
>her Charm set. However, shintais suffer a few limitations: many
>natural Infernal Charms do not work while the Infernal is in
>shintai. Meanwhile, some shintais may dissolve after a certain
>period of time, reverting the Infernal to her true, more vulner-
>able form. All shintais are automatically released when their
>health track is depleted completely, returning the Exalt to her
>true form. Players will be able to build custom shintais by mix-
>ing and matching powers unique to various shintais. They will
>also gain access to shintais which are avatars of the Yozis, such
>as Glasiphane, the Eye of the Mind, a shining woman nested in
>a spiral of ten thousand winged cobras, each of their eyes shin-
>ing with a soft crystal flame.

>In addition, shintais form a gateway to Charms and muta-
>tions the Infernal can access in her regular form.

>An Infernal who can transform into Glasiphane has access to
>a mutation that grows a tumor in her brain that allows her to
>learn the Charm Mind Hand Manipulation

>insert anecdotal logical fallacy here

Shintai are the Infernals' Special Thing, like the Solars have Supernal and Lunars have Shapeshifting.

The devs have retracted that whole brain tumor shit. Infernals are ability based.

They have?

Nearly all players I had in the recruitment player thread have died off in my games after two months.

Ironically, all players I've gotten from the ERP threads have paid close attention to their PC's, player actions, and have been in the game a year and a half even in a game without porn.

IIRC, yes to the detraction bit.

But they are DEFINITELY Ability based. And yes, it is unfortunate.

I'm pretty sure they were stated to be Ability-based in the very same preview with the whole tumor thing, as well. And I don't see anything unfortunate about it.

MHM might be Occult due to having the Sorcerous tag. I'm interested in the new ability based trees. When Infernals first dropped, you got the choice of favouring 2 of 5 Yozi charmsets, roughly in line with Solars favouring 10 of 25 abilities. The both worked out to about 40%. But the Introduction of Kimbery quickly established that favouring 2 of about 12 Yozi would be shit. Ability based trees would allow the devs to use as many Yozi as they wish without fucking with XP costs. Interestingly, there'd still be room for heretical charms, they could tie together different Yozi trees in a set in the same way Flashing Edge of Dawn ties together multiattacks and counterattacks in Melee or how Triumph Forged God Body ties together strength, speed, and leaping movements in Athletics.

Also, Shintais. Looking forward to those.

>tfw /trash/ has better roleplayers than Veeky Forums

It doesn't matter if it's accurate or even reasonable criticism; it provides a sound-byte to easily dunk on a thing.

Sort of like how people keep bringing up Aatrek in relation to SomethingAwful, Beast in relation to WoD, sex moves in Apoacalypse World or Monsterhearts, and so on.

Context only detracts from the overall intent, which is to poison the well for people who only heard the one thing and aren't invested enough to look into it beyond that.

They didn't retract the whole thing, of course.

People liked the charmset being divided by Yozi. It made it easier to create weird charms that don't really fit any ability, have multi-purpose charms (like combat charms that work using any ranged non-Sorcery form of attack instead of just bows) and have charms have more thematic connections instead of mechanical ones (Malfeas tree that's all about his green flames used for a variety of purposes to contrast throw charm tree where thrown charms lead into more thrown charms).

Not saying it's better, but it was a breath of fresh air, and it was interesting. People didn't like potentially losing that.

So...what is the consensus about 3e's rules? Good, bad, worse, better than before?

Better than before without a doubt. Whether it's 'actually pretty good' or just 'pretty good compared to 2E' is a matter of debate, but I think it's actually pretty good.

Much better than 2e, but still has big problems, like the entire craft system.

>it'd be funny if her left leg tattoo said STOP and her right-leg tattoo said DON'T STOP

>her

strictly inferior to 2.5e, people are just blinded by the novelty of it all.

Behold: a new breed of trolling.

I think that's just the old fashioned SV brand of idiocy.

I'm not up to date on the current trends of SV Exalted generals, I just read fanfiction there. Can you enlighten me what it is that they do there?

Better than before, and has legitimately good qualities in and of itself now.

The combat system is especially one of the better ones out there now.

I am Topaz Eyed Troll Whose Shitposts Are 10,000 Characters Of Shit In A 1,000 Character Textbox, but I do sometimes express honest opinions.

Gather in a circle around EarthScorpion and Aleph and circlejerk while staring at them in admiration, mostly.

So, what you're saying is that behind that pretend retardation hides real retardation?

It's more like a sideways move. It fixes a lot of problems that 2e had but introduces a lot of new ones. The book does a poor job of introducing the setting coherently, the mechanics require a lot of study to get a firm grasp on, and the charms take up like half the book and most of them intertwine the mechanics and fluff in such a way that it's physically painful to read through, in addition to being organized in the most unintuitive way possible.

There might be a playable game in there, but it's got such a high barrier for entry that it'll drive away anyone who's not already a huge fan of exalted.

It's not much, it's just that they really hate the devs while fellating posters like Earthscorpion, so they tend to buy into Earthscorpion saying his houseruled 2E is better. And jerking off Aleph and Earthscorpion whenever they talk about their Infernals game. There's just as many posts about "Kerisgame" as there is about the actual game

And then there's posters like Shyft, who outright admit that they're giving inaccurate or misleading criticism of 3E because he's angry at the people who support it on SV.

And NotAnAutomaton, who insists on talking about how his own Exalted heartbreaker is going to be awesome, while providing absolutely nothing coherent.

Or HavocFett, who felt the need to shill for D&D 5E ad nauseum in the Exalted thread because he felt Exalted was too problematic, and insisting that you can totes run Exalted's setting in D&D.

Basically, while these people are not representative of every poster on SV, they are the loudest, most irritating, and most noticeable. Interacting with them is unavoidable.

I've ran 3E for people new to Exalted. It went just fine. Insofar as there was dissatisfaction, it was about the setting and concept of the game not being everyone's cup of tea, not about mechanics.

Isn't that what life really is?

I gathered, but which direction are they circlejerking right now?

Nice analysis m8. Thanks.
I don't plan on ever visiting that thread unless someone links something from it here, but nice to know.

>but introduces a lot of new ones

The fact that one can run 3E RAW without running into things like Paranoia Combat or Rocket Tag lethality really makes this more than a sideways move.

>the mechanics require a lot of study to get a firm grasp on

Again, still better than 2E in this regard.

Whether or not you want to argue about 3E's merits in and of itself, the argument that it isn't an improvement from 2E is nonsense.

And speaking anecdotally, I /was/ able to run Ex3 just fine for a group who never played a roleplaying game before.

How is combat in 3rd edition? Does the idea of cinematic battles still stand where enemies are clashing swords waiting for right time to strike? Or does it go into 100 dice, one-hit-kill?

I meant high-level combat. Does it go into same problem as many rpgs when it starts breaking on high level when you just obliterate your opposition in 1-2 rounds tops?

>I gathered, but which direction are they circlejerking right now?
Against 3E, for 2.5 and their own homebrews.

Generally speaking, it's pretty challenging to one-shot anybody now, and the high essence effects are a good deal more restrained.

circlejerking is always the same no matter the product line.

1st edition - idea of pure idea.
2nd edition - better product. We have Infernals
3rd edition - 2ed sucks. Buy 3rd edition. We need your money (I undestand the logic behind it. They need to earn the money so they can produce more products.
homebrew - guys. check my personal, better vision of Exalted. It has xyz and one day I'm gonna publish my own book

Honestly I have no idea what is being discussed right now, but I liked DaveB's Twitter post where he said "never assume people on SV have actually read the book"

2ed really does suck though. Pretty much everyone acknowledged its issues but they liked the setting enough to let it go.

I'd have been happy with 3E if they just fixed Paranoia Combat, and they definitely did that, and more besides.

>DaveB
Who?

One of the writers for Mage 2E.

Is it just me or is Exalted weirdly fatalist for its tone?

Fatalism is literally written into the metaphysics of the setting with the Loom. Only Essence-users can hope to change their fate. But besides that, there's a fatalist veneer to many things. A Dragon-Blooded can never match a Celestial. No matter how hard they push themselves, they just can't. I'm fine with them being weaker, but they don't even have the chance to barely touch the Celestials. Likewise, mortals cannot hope to command even the smallest bit of Essence and grasp even a sliver of the Exalted's puissance. They can't even learn TMA now!

You can counter this by saying that Creation is not a Noblebright setting, but it isn't Grimdark for that matter either. It's..."Grimbright"--the world sucks, yeah, but it CAN be better. The Solars really ARE glorious god-kings that can uplift humanity into near-paradise, they just have to get their shit together.

I dunno. I like settings where a person can break their limitations and ROW ROW FIGHT THA POWAA and all that. The idea of, say, a mortal training for years and years and finally being able to use Essence is cool as hell to me, as is the idea of a Dragon-Blooded pushing themselves as hard as conceivably possible and actually managing to beat a Celestial at their own game. And Exalted is ACTIVELY antagonistic to that kind of thing, which seems really weird given the Grimbright tone of the setting.

Hell, to even BE an Exalt you pretty much have to win a glorified lottery. There are probably thousands of people fit to be Solars, but only 150 of them actually Exalt.

>I don't know what the 3e devs are for or against, but they sure act retarded sometimes.

Jesus.

Seriously, help an user out and drop a link?

>caring about e2 Fluff
well, there's your problem, buddy

Everything I was talking about applies to 3e. Hell, mortals in 2e could at least command Essence--now they can't! DB's still are unable to even get close to Celestials, and I'm pretty sure the Loom functions the same.

>Fatalism is literally written into the metaphysics of the setting with the Loom. Only Essence-users can hope to change their fate.
I don't think the Loom is portrayed as determining everything. There is Fate, there are things that will come to pass, but there is also room for choice and free will.

>But besides that, there's a fatalist veneer to many things. A Dragon-Blooded can never match a Celestial. No matter how hard they push themselves, they just can't. I'm fine with them being weaker, but they don't even have the chance to barely touch the Celestials. Likewise, mortals cannot hope to command even the smallest bit of Essence and grasp even a sliver of the Exalted's puissance. They can't even learn TMA now!
I don't think that's actually fatalism. Both mortals and especially Dragon-Blooded can do impressive, meaningful things, they can make choices, they can and do matter. That they can't match a Celestial in his particular area of expertise is not all that important, I'd say.

>I dunno. I like settings where a person can break their limitations and ROW ROW FIGHT THA POWAA and all that. The idea of, say, a mortal training for years and years and finally being able to use Essence is cool as hell to me, as is the idea of a Dragon-Blooded pushing themselves as hard as conceivably possible and actually managing to beat a Celestial at their own game. And Exalted is ACTIVELY antagonistic to that kind of thing, which seems really weird given the Grimbright tone of the setting.
Stuff like that just isn't what Exalted is about. Shit's unfair, some people just are overwhelmingly more powerful than others. The weaker guys can still matter. They can even triumph over their 'betters', in the right circumstances.

Much better. 3rd edition has problems, but they're not major and won't bring your game to a grinding halt like 1st and 2nd edition.

The biggest problem with 3rd edition is that some of the subsystems are too intricate, but if you don't like them it's easy to chop them down into a more manageable size.

>Only Essence-users can hope to change their fate.
Give me a quote from e3
>but they don't even have the chance to barely touch the Celestials.
Wrong
>mortals cannot hope to command even the smallest bit of Essence
It's called being a sorcerer
>Hell, to even BE an Exalt you pretty much have to win a glorified lottery. There are probably thousands of people fit to be Solars, but only 150 of them actually Exalt.
More e2 lore you straight-up copied

It's only as grimdark if you include your retarded lore, stupid

To continue:

>Hell, to even BE an Exalt you pretty much have to win a glorified lottery. There are probably thousands of people fit to be Solars, but only 150 of them actually Exalt.
I think it's more like winning gold in some really high-level sports event, like the Olympic games. I mean, the top contestants are probably reasonaböy close to each other in ability. The guys who got silver and bronze *could* have won: the guy who got gold isn't necessarily *better* than them. He still did better in that particular situation. He still deserved his victory through his own talent and effort. I see Exaltation as being something similar to that rather than being comparable to a guy just happening to buy a winning lottery ticket.

>A Dragon-Blooded can never match a Celestial. No matter how hard they push themselves, they just can't.
>DB's still are unable to even get close to Celestials, and I'm pretty sure the Loom functions the same.

This isn't actually true. The Immaculate QC's from the antagonists chapter are pretty damn scary for basically anyone who isn't a Dawn, and they're just essence 2.

It's the Abyssals preview from the Kickstarter, guy.

>Wrong

Name one situation where a DB could take on a Dawn 1v1 and not die horrible. Or one where a DB could out-think a Twilight.

Even if they have the same stats, Solar Charms are so ludicrously powerful that it doesn't matter. Even if several DB's work together, a Solar could outdo all of them.

>It's called being a sorcerer

I thought becoming a sorcerer changes a mortal into something else. Pretty sure the devs said that somewhere.

>More e2 lore you straight-up copied

What? There are only a limited number of Solar Exaltations. Even during the Primordial War and First Age, there was but 300. Creation is fucking huge.

Oh, for some reason that phrasing made me think there was some new clusterfuck that happened.

>Lunars are certainly bait for a) furfags who get off on being the little monstergirl, b) commissar fuklaws who get off on purging furfags and heresy.

In my experience Lunars are bait for weeaboos who want to play a moekawaii catgirl/foxgirl/whatever. The guys who ALWAYS choose animal ears and tails for their Tells like Marena in Keychain of Creation.

>Name one situation where a DB could take on a Dawn 1v1 and not die horrible. Or one where a DB could out-think a Twilight.
Rolling really well. I mean, if DBs could reliably match Solars by trying realy hard, their power difference, which matters for the setting and themes of the game, wouldn't matter much. And besides, what would happen when Solars also try their hardest to push themselves past their limits?

>Fatalism is literally written into the metaphysics of the setting with the Loom. Only Essence-users can hope to change their fate.

Stop.

>Name one situation where a DB could take on a Dawn 1v1 and not die horrible.
E3 Immaculate Master against non-optimised Dawn
Jeez, that was easy. Let's try another one
Mnemon against starting Dawn.
Wow, another easy one. How about a third one:
100 year old Veteran against non-optimised Dawn/War supernal Dawn/Atheltics supernal Dawn/....

Would Punished Snake be a GSP?

>Mnemon against starting Dawn.
Eh, Mnemon isn't all that when it comes to straight-up combat. Otherwise I agree with you.

>Solar Charms are so ludicrously powerful that it doesn't matter.
Did you even bother reading e3 at all? Solar charms are good, great even. But they're not remotely good enough to win when not playing to your strengths, or against a character that's older and has more charms even though they're individually weaker, or when put at a disadvantage, or when you just have a bad match-up, or...

so basically if you give a DB hundreds of xp and hyper focus it on combat it can take out a dawn with no xp that has been purposely built to not be good at combat? got any other brilliant insights?

Yeah, but Memnon can literally bring Octavian to the fight.

Moving goalposts.

For a solo 2e Infenals story, should I give the player any extra benefits in-game/at character creation to make up for them having no coven to support them? If so, what should the rough ballpark be?

>so basically if you give a DB hundreds of xp and hyper focus it on combat it can take out a dawn with no xp that has been purposely built to not be good at combat? got any other brilliant insights?

I was disputing:
>A Dragon-Blooded can never match a Celestial. No matter how hard they push themselves, they just can't. I'm fine with them being weaker, but they don't even have the chance to barely touch the Celestials.

which my examples undeniably disprove. A case can be made for less extreme xp differences, but there things are less clear so I decided to go with clear counter-points.

>purposely built to not be good at combat?
Or, you know, was built as an organic character rather than an exercise in optimisation that will fold to any challenge outside his extremely narrow range of specialisation.

It's just not the kind of game that celebrates the self-made man. It's not about fighting the power; it's about BEING the power. It's an older sort of story than the rags-to-riches scrappy-underdog flavor of narrative that we're most familiar with. You're the best and the strongest and the rightful rulers of everything, and your enemies are jealous weaklings trying to keep you down. Exalted are unapologetic power fantasies; they're overdog heroes.

>I thought becoming a sorcerer changes a mortal into something else. Pretty sure the devs said that somewhere.
So? That still means it should qualify for
> The idea of, say, a mortal training for years and years and finally being able to use Essence is cool as hell to me

If the reveals are any indication, he's a Sidereal

the idea of him being a Siddie who has convinced everyone that he is in fact a GSP makes me laugh.

Punished Snake is using a Resplendent Destiny of Big Boss the whole time.

I kinda think it makes more sense for them to be attribute based

Any hope the Sourcebooks will come faster?

Its funny as their 2.75e is shit. Its more complicated for literally no gain.

And Shyft, oh boy shyft. Hes still assblasted after the devs smacked him down. He's reasonable, but trying to convince him of things like the hero keyword for native charms is nuts.

As the Alchemical guy, if the last ever happens to me, punch me.

Hopefully, but they mentioned redoing Dragonblooded once already.

Shyft freaked out enough that even the people who disliked 3E were saying his arguments were terrible.

>A Dragon-Blooded can never match a Celestial.
They can, just not in their speciality. But yes, DBs are weaker because they were created as troops and officers, not generals. Numbers are their advantage and they once used them to overthrow the presumably "untouchable" Celestials.

>Likewise, mortals cannot hope to command even the smallest bit of Essence
They can. You can become Sorcerer, get mutated by Wyld, blessed by a god or whatever. But merely trying very hard is not enough, you have to change your nature in some way. Being mortal by definition means that you can't channel Essence.

>I dunno. I like settings where a person can break their limitations
Creation isn't one of those. Each splat has clear limitations. You can sometimes rise above your station but it's not something common or done by merely shouting very loud. But that doesn't mean that beings from higher tiers of power are untouchable and being from lower colpetely irrelevant. Mortals and DBs ARE relevant, just in ways mortal and DBs can be. If your only measure of comptence is "can punch Ligier in the face" then you should change that.

>Hell, to even BE an Exalt you pretty much have to win a glorified lottery.
No, that's not how this works. Only worthy people are given Exaltations. There is limit of AROUND 300 (no hard number given in 3E IIRC) and I think has the right idea with the gold medal analogy.

Any writers/homebrewers here who have Exalted influences in your work? Creation, Malfeas, Autochthonia, etc. are such amazing places and have such cool stuff it's hard not to take stuff from them.

I'm currently working on a Homebrew setting whose backstory follows the same basic narrative as Exalted's (a bunch of chthonic gods create humanity to extract prayer from them; they made us weak but gave us potential, causing us to beg for anything to assuage the suffering of living; eventually a few come to cherish us and humanity eventually fights and kills their creators, who are now trapped in an fucked-up corpse-dimension and REALLY fucking mad about it). There's nothing like Exalts though.

Sometimes it sucks though: it's like Exalted did ALL the cool stuff before. Maybe I'm just not original enough.

So yeah, mortals can only do anything if they stop being mortals.

Yes, but that's semantics. Mortals were created unable to channel their Essence and can't do so without changing their nature. Alternatively they can become Sorcerers and channel the Essence of Creation, which is external to them.